Home
by okmeamithinknow
Summary: A lazy day at home has Ed reflecting on his future. Postcanon


The afternoon is thick with sunshine, the sun beating down a blanket of heat and haze across the hills and valleys of Resembool. The honeyed lethargy seeps through the window and into his bones. But despite the sun and the heat, there is nowhere else Ed would rather be than curled up on the couch with Winry tucked into his side.

How he manages to coax her to come lay down with him without a fight is a mystery, but it's a luxury he knows not to take for granted. The last few weeks have been a flurry of filling requests. So much so that he's taken to helping around the shop just to see his wife, and the rare days where work can wait—has to wait for parts to be delivered, and customers to come in to collect their orders, where no one, but him demands her attention— are so few and far between that Ed will take what he can get.

(And yes he may have threatened the locals with the pain of death if they tried to bother the two of them today. But she needs a day off, and he needs a day to dote on her.)

He toys with the ends of her hair as she dozes on his chest, long strands of blond loose from her usual ponytail and twisted between his fingers. The steady rhythm of her breathing soothes him, soft snores that he's always secretly loved.

(Snores that he told her about just once and ended up with a wrench to the face for his teasing.)

She shifts, draping more of herself across his body, and the motion keeps him from completely falling asleep. A leg finds its way between his, and her nose presses against his bare chest as she snuggles in closer in her sleep.

The overwhelming sense of home strikes him with ferocity that steals his breath.

It's not the building, the Rockbell family home that Pinako gave to them as a wedding present. Not the scent of grease and flowers she picked out and he planted beneath the eaves of the house.

(The ones that his mother liked and remind him of summers filled with childish innocence and nights too hot to sleep.)

Nor is it the battered couch they're sprawled across, worn over years of use, but it was their first big purchase as a married couple

But this girl.

This beautiful golden girl that somehow puts up with… well... him.

She knows him. Knows him well enough to recognize his travesty of a proposal for what it was. That overtures of feelings and emotions of a boy forced to grow up too soon get caught behind a dam of awkwardness and alchemy.

The girl willing to wait, to not ask questions when he and Al searched for a way to restore their bodies, and then let him see the world, to travel, to learn before coming home to her. The girl who demanded that she establish her automail workshop before marrying him. To give them both a chance to grow and mature, and still have something—some one— to come back to. The girl who still throws wrenches at his head when he invariably says something stupid.

The girl who's managed to do something he and Al and any other state alchemist couldn't do, to create life.

(No equivalent exchange needed.)

He reaches down, pressing his hand softly onto the bare skin of Winry's stomach. She's taken to wearing her shorter shirts again; _the heat of the automail shop at the height of summer near stifling sometimes, and it's much easier to clean grease out of skin than it is fabric,_ she insists. He wonders briefly how long that will last, once she truly starts to show, the slight swell of her stomach beneath his fingers barely perceptible to those who know to look for it.

"We're not going to be able to do this for much longer," he says, soft and almost to himself. And as soon as the words are out of his mouth he tenses, waiting for the angry tirade he knows is coming. Figuring she'll assume its some comment about her weight and the fact that she won't be able to fit snuggly between him and the back of the couch much longer. She'd complained to him that morning about her pants feeling tighter and lamenting the need to borrow a pair of his shorts for the day.

But Winry's answering, "hmm," is a testament to how much she's needed this rest. She peers up at him with bleary eyes, resting her chin on a fist.

"Just that—" he brushes her bangs out of her eyes and gives her a lopsided grin, "—We're not going to be able to do this, just you and me."

She gets what he means though, meeting his smile with one of her own. Her eyes drift closed again. Her answering yeah is almost eaten by her yawn. He pulls her closer, burying his nose in her hair.

Soon enough the looming pressures of work undone and customers will make their needs known and in a few months time, Al will come home from Xing, Mei in tow, eager to meet his new niece or nephew. And while the birth will be relatively uncomplicated, Ed will be more than grateful to have his sister-in-law's knowledge of alkahestry and his brother's calming influence by his side.

But for now, Ed is content just where he is, tangled with Winry on the couch.


End file.
